Spain claimed most of the Americas from its native inhabitants by virtue of first discovery.

Conquistadors who explored the Americas include:

Ponce de Leon, 1513;

Hernán Cortés, 1519;

Panfilo de Narvaez, 1527;

Desoto, 1539;

Coronado, 1540; and

Cabrillo, 1542.

Since gold was minimal in North America, the area was of little interest to the Spanish Empire.

Spanish attempts to colonize North America mostly failed.

In 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón landed with 600 settlers near
Sapelo Sound, Georgia; but the settlement failed due to the harsh winter, disease, mutiny, and 100 African slaves running off to live with the native tribe of Guales.

In 1528,
Pánfilo de Narváez landed with 400 settlers near
St. Petersburg, Florida, but this settlement failed due to a hurricane and native attacks. Eighty survivors built rafts and floated along the coast till the Mississippi River current swept them out to sea.

A few landed near present-day
Galveston and were enslaved by natives. Four escaped, including
Cabeza de Vaca, who traveled through the areas of
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico, preaching the Gospel and praying for sick natives, with reports of miraculous recoveries, till he finally arrived in Mexico City in 1536.

In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the service of King Francis I of France, was the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America, sailing from Florida to New York Bay, to Narragansett, to New Brunswick.

In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier claimed Canada as New France.

In 1541, Roberval attempted to settle Charlesbourg-Royal near present-day Quebec.

In 1603,
Good King Henry of Navarre sent
Samuel de Champlain to settle New France (Canada).

In 1605,
Champlain, considered
“the Father of New France,” together with Pierre Du Gua de Monts, founded Port Royal as the first capital of French Acadia.

In 1608,
Champlain founded
Quebec City near the Indian settlement of "Stadacona."

In 1609, he encountered the lake which was named for him –
Lake Champlain – draining north into the Saint Lawrence River Valley of Canada.

English settlements began in Virginia in 1607, and Massachusetts in 1620.

In 1624, the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, present day New York.

In 1638, King Gustavus Adolphus sent settlers to found New Sweden, present day Delaware and New Jersey.

In 1673, French missionary priest, Jacque Marquette, and French explorer Louis Joliet, traveled down from Canada to Lake Michigan.

They then followed the Fox River till they reached the Mississippi, canoeing as far south as Arkansas.

Describing the expulsion, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem "Evangeline."

Louis XIV's grandson was Louis XV, who lost the French and Indian War in 1763.

This gave Britain control of all of America east of the Mississippi, with the exception of Spanish Florida.

As the French and Indian War was ending, France ceded the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, 1762, in order to keep Britain from getting it.

French settlers fled the British controlled land, across the Mississippi, to found the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1764, even though the land was nominally under Spanish control.

In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, the British and Indians led a failed attack on St. Louis.

France's new King, Louis XVI, sent his navy to help America win the Battle of Yorktown, resulting in America's independence from Britain.

France incurred an enormous war debt for helping with the American Revolution, which weakened the monarchy.

The French Revolution began in 1789, and on January 21, 1793, a mob beheaded 38-year-old King Louis XVI.

The Reign of Terror that followed resulted in 40,000 citizens being beheaded in Paris by the Committee of Public Safety.

Thousands more were killed across France for refusing to embrace the new secular government.

In the midst of this chaos, Napoleon staged a coup d'état in 1799 and installed himself as First Consul of France.

Napoleon pressured Spain to sign another secret treaty, the Treaty of San Ildefonso, in 1800, which gave the Louisiana Territory back to France.

In 1802, Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to purchase a small area of land near New Orleans for docking ships.

Needing cash to fight Britain and the other European countries, Napoleon responded by offering to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million dollars.

President Thomas Jefferson agreed to the purchase and the size of the U.S. doubled on APRIL 30, 1803, with the Louisiana Purchase.

The 828,000 square miles were purchased at less than three cents an acre - it was the greatest real estate deal in history!

Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore it.

Not everyone in America was happy. The State of Massachusetts threatened to secede from the Union, arguing that the adding of so large a territory would dilute the influence of existing States.

Jefferson brokered a compromise with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, commenting in his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805:

"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger the union, but who can limit the extent to which the Federative principle may operate effectively?"

The rush to turn the Louisiana Purchase into new States, either slave or free, was a factor leading up to the Civil War.

Another contributing factor influencing Napoleon to sell the Louisiana Territory was the slave rebellion in Haiti.

Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti, calling the island Hispanola, with the capital city of Santo Domingo named for Columbus' father, Dominic.

The French took half of the Island in the year 1660, and calling it Saint-Domingue, and later Haiti.

It was one of the wealthiest colonies in the world, producing sugar, indigo, cotton and coffee.

Plantations deplorably used slave labor.

While the French Revolution abolished slavery in France, the French allowed slavery to continue in Haiti.

Slave revolts from 1791-1804 resulted in tens of thousands French, Mulattos, Blacks, and even Polish, dying with horrible brutality on all sides.

Napoleon's fear that Haiti's slave rebellion might spread to the Louisiana Territory was a contributing factor in his rush to sell it.

When Napoleon put his brother Joseph on Spain's throne in 1808, Venezuela declared independence in 1810, followed by Central American countries of Chile, Argentina, and eventually Mexico.

On June 23, 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with nearly a half million men. Six months later he retreated with less than 50,000.

This disastrous loss forced him to abdicate the throne and he was exiled to the Mediterranean Island of Elba.

Napoleon escaped Elba on February 26, 1815, and returned to rule France for 100 days.

After losing the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, Napoleon was permanently banished to the tiny South Atlantic island of St. Helena.

During his career, Napoleon fought in over 100 battles, conquering large areas of Europe.

He instituted the
Napoleonic Code on March 21, 1804, which effectively installed him as a dictator, permitted religious freedom, prohibited privileges based on birth.and required government jobs be given to the most qualified.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) had caused an estimated 6 million deaths from battle and related diseases, starvation and exposure.

On the island of St. Helena, Napoleon began to reflect on his life and even began reading the Bible.

A few years before dying at the age of 52, Napoleon commented to General H.G. Bertrand, as recorded in "On St. Helena," 1816:

"The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. One finds in meditating upon it that which one experiences in contemplating the heavens ...

... The Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades everything that opposes its extension. Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others (here the Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it):

I never omit to read it, and every day with new pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army ... The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide ..."

Napoleon continued:

"Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison;

﻿He is truly a Being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.

Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Christianity, the only religion which destroys sectional prejudices, the only one which proclaims the unity and the absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true country, the bosom of the Creator, God."

Napoleon concluded:

"Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify one only and the same thing-eternity.

What a proof of the divinity of Christ!

With an empire so absolute, he has but one single end - the spiritual melioration of individuals, the purity of the conscience, the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul ...

Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled; and the soul can never go astray with this book for its guide.

Once master of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God even is our friend, our father, and truly our God. The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she nurses ..."

Napoleon ended by telling General H.G. Bertrand:

"If you do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well: then I did wrong to make you a general."